


are you lonely, darling?

by Areiton



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Death God, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lonely Peter Hale, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Murder Husbands, Protective Stiles Stilinski, Suicidal Thoughts, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 13:03:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16619495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: He is four and lonely.He is four and lonely and there is a pale man with a small secretive smile.





	are you lonely, darling?

**Author's Note:**

> This one is heavy and I promise it ends happy but there's a lot to it so full spoilery warnings at the bottom. 
> 
> Also? This story came to me in the middle of the night and wouldn't leave me the fuck alone so I'm still up. At almost 3am. Posting it. Thanks for that, Stiles.

He is four, and crying.

“Are you lonely?” 

He stares at the boy, a pretty stranger, pale and dark, like shadows and moonlight. 

He thinks he  _ is _ strange and that he should be scared. But then the boy--a teenager, maybe, he thinks--crouches next to him in the dirt and carefully thumbs away his tears. “I could give you a friend, darling.” 

His hands clench on the boy’s and they’re cold cold cold but the boy’s eyes are bright, warm as the whiskey he sees Daddy drinking, deep and soothing. “You,” he demands, and the boy pauses. 

“You want me to be your friend?” 

Peter nods, and the boy smiles, a small thing that holds secrets. 

“If that’s what you want, darling.” 

~*~ 

He isn’t always there. Peter learns to live, without his pale friend, even when he longed for the days when Stiles would slip from the trees, silent across the grass as he came to Peter, that small secret smile tilting his lips. 

~*~ 

He is eight and there are bruises on his cheeks, his ribs, his arms and legs. 

“What happened?” 

He stares at the boy, at the familiar eyes almost black with rage and the voice that is so soft and teasing turn hard and cold, and he shivers. 

Stiles is gentle, though, gentle as he lifts Peter, cradles the small bruised aching body against his larger one, gentle as he hums a tune wordless and soothing and pets a cool hand over Peter’s hair. “Tell me what happened.” 

Peter is quiet, and tears splash on Stiles shirt, but he doesn’t beg or threaten or cajole. 

When the sun is setting and Peter is still and sleepy against his chest Stiles murmurs, “I would kill them all for you.” 

Peter nods, solemn and serious. “I know.” 

~*~ 

He does know. Stiles doesn’t talk about himself, likes to sit silent while Peter talks, or prod him into debates, but is always quick to steer conversation away from himself. 

He doesn’t mind, except for when he does, but if the price of Stiles’ friendship is not knowing, he’ll pay it and gladly. 

~*~ 

He is twelve and there is blood on his thighs and a scream trapped in his throat. 

“ _ Don’t touch him.” _

The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere, and he would scream but it  _ stops _ the pain  _ stops _ and that voice is familiar, is soothing and safe and when it comes again, it’s gentle, tentative. “Peter?” 

He sobs, and curls into himself in shame and relief, curls in his father’s blood and sobs, and Stiles makes soft, distressed noises, shadows slinking around him and he reaches out, half begging wordless. 

“I'm here, darling. I'm here.”

~*~ 

He is. 

Always. During the long funeral and the longer nights, when Peter woke screaming and Stiles shushed him with quiet promises and gentle touches.

He is always  _ there. _ And sometimes, his  _ thereness _ , his shadows and moonlight, was all that kept Peter breathing. 

~*~ 

He is fifteen and shattering. 

“Darling,” he coaxes, “don't. Please don't.”

Pale cold hands touch at his, pull the wolfsbane from him, pull the silver razors from him. 

He doesn't fight. Doesn't protest. Just sits numb and Stiles gathers him close, and whispers promises and apologies in his hair. 

He is so tired. 

“It's not time yet, Peter. Not yet.”

~*~ 

He comes back with two friends, a fiery haired girl with cruel smiles and soft eyes, a tall blonde who follows in her footsteps and smells of ash and smoke. 

They stay there, with him, when Stiles cannot, fill up the empty house with presence and conversation and slowly, slowly, the cold around his heart melts. 

~*~ 

He is eighteen and smiling. 

“Dance with me.”

He is swaying close, drunk on freedom and Stiles, always Stiles. He can hear Lydia and Parrish in the distant, the familiar breathless gasps she makes when Parrish fucks her and it makes him ache, makes him long for more than this moonlit shadow dance. 

“Are you lonely?” He asks and Stiles blinks at him. His eyes are familiar and ancient and his smile small and secretive. 

“Silly darling,” Stiles breathes without quite kissing him. 

~*~ 

He aches with  _ knowing,  _ with the steadily creeping knowledge of his friend, his Stiles, and he sees it there, bright in Stiles eyes, patient patient patient, and he smiles. 

~*~ 

He is twenty-one and sometimes, sometimes, he screams in his dream. 

Sometimes, he wakes to an empty house and he misses them, Lydia and Parrish. 

Sometimes he wants a warm body in bed next to him. 

But always, there is Stiles, slipping into his apartment like liquid silver, smiling soft and warm and murmuring, “Hello, darling.”

~*~ 

He wants. 

He  _ wants.  _

He aches with wanting and sees it staring back, hungry and ancient in his oldest friend's eyes. 

~*~ 

He is twenty-six and heartbroken and furious. 

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says, and he sounds it. 

Peter laughs, and it’s sharp, sharp, cutting,  _ furious _ . “I was  _ happy _ .” 

Stiles is silent, and it makes him angrier, his rage burning incandescent and he  _ shoves _ at him, the pale man stumbling, and even still, Peter knows it’s only because Stiles allows it. 

“I was  _ happy _ and you  _ ruined _ it.” 

Stiles makes a wounded noise, and turns away. 

Pauses. 

His voice sounds different. Thick and choked in a way Peter has never heard, in a way that makes his heart seize. “I am sorry, darling. I am so sorry.” 

~*~ 

He is. 

Peter knows he is. 

He just wishes Stiles knew he didn’t need to be. 

~*~ 

He is thirty-three and lonely. 

He hasn’t seen Stiles in almost eight years and thinks every day should be easier and not more painful.

He thinks, often, of those days, when he reached for wolfsbane and sharp blades and the way Stiles pulled them gentle from his fingers, softly saying  _ no.  _

He wonders, if reaching for them now would bring him back. 

He wonders often enough he almost does. Almost almost almost, and always stops, and reaches for books of legend and lore. 

~*~ 

He finds Stiles, there, again, a image so lovely and familiar and immediately recognizable it makes him breath catch. 

~*~ 

He is thirty-four, and his hands are bloody. 

He is thirty-four and his hands are bloody and he waits, vibrating impatient. 

He is thirty-four and he knows, finally, what he wants. 

~*~ 

Stiles drifts to him like a cool wind, and surveys the body Peter kneels beside. It has been eight years, and he is still always forever beautiful, lithe and long, pale  gleaming moonlight, and darkness clinging to him like a lover. 

“Peter,” he breathes, soft and awed.

“Do you like it?” Peter asks, kneeling up on his knees and Stiles’ cool hand cups his jaw, cradles him like he’s holy. 

“Darling, it’s lovely. It’s perfect. You are perfect.” 

~*~ 

He is thirty-four and loved. 

So very loved. 

~*~ 

He kills more, after that, and always, Stiles accepts those gifts with trembling fingers cradling his jaw, awe and love shining in his ancient eyes and a small, secretive smile tilting up his lips. 

Always, Stiles presses him into sheets that are warm and Stiles is cool and steady as he licks him open, always, he fills Peter up, and whispers promises, promises to never leave. 

To always stay. 

“Never alone, darling,” Stiles promises, and Peter believes him. 

He does he does he does. 

~*~ 

He is forty and forty-seven and fifty-three and he kills. 

He is fifty-six and sixty-two and sixty-seven, and he lives. 

He lives with blood on his hands and the press of cool lips against his throat. 

“Are you lonely?” Stiles asks, sometimes, when he’s cradled against Peter’s broad chest, sated and lazy, blood still marring his pretty pale skin. 

“Never,” Peter says, and it’s a promise vow. “Not with you.” 

Stiles smiles for him then, bright and pleased. 

~*~

He is seventy-two when Stiles kisses him. 

Seventy-two and old, tired and happy, and Stiles still young, eternal. Peter teases him, tells him all of his blood sacrifices kept his god young and pretty, and Stiles smirks. 

He never minded. Never cared that Stiles was young and untouched--he knew what he loved, even before he read about a god called Nemiza, a god of death and calamity. 

He remembers, seeing Stiles in that ancient book of mythology, Lydia naked at his side and Parrish flying behind them. 

He remembers seeing and  _ recognizing  _ what he’d always known. 

~*~ 

He was four  and a pale god wrapped in moonlight and shadow whispered a promise-- _ if that’s what you want, darling-- _ and for sixty-eight years, he has kept that promise, kept Peter from close, with cool touches and sweet laughter, and bloody sacrifices. 

And every time darkness clings, every time he reaches for wolfsbane and silver razors, Stiles sighs and kisses his shoulder, pulls them from his hands and murmurs, “Not yet, darling. Not yet.”

~*~ 

He is seventy-two and Stiles says, “Are you sure?” 

The only thing he’s ever been sure of, completely sure of, is Stiles.

~*~ 

“Stay with me,” Peter whispers. 

“Always, darling,” Stiles answers, and kisses him, finally, for the first time for the last time. 

~*~ 

He dies, and it’s easy, achingly easy. 

Stiles smiles, small and secretive, bloody moonlight shadows and so familiar it almost hurts. “Let me show you,” Stiles whispers, and he does. 

A empty black kingdom of ghosts and memories and Peter wonders. 

If Stiles was lonely too, all those long ears ago. 

He turns to his lover, friend, protector, god. “Are you lonely?” 

Stiles smiles, and it brightens the darkness. “Never, darling. Never with you.” 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Full warnings: Peter is abused, physically and sexually, with a nice dose of emotional neglect.   
> Stiles is a death god and there's a fair bit of killing and bloody sex because of it.   
> Peter has moments of suicidal thoughts and one near attempt.   
> Peter does die--but Stiles is a death god, so death doesn't mean separation or even the end. It's rather sweet, I think.


End file.
